Amazon is Bluffing, Wants to Stay in NYC: Analyst Prediction
*By Michael Teich*
Amazon's blog post announcing it will pull the plug on its New York City headquarters is nothing but a bluff to bring politicians back to the negotiating table, said D.A. Davidson Analyst Tom Forte.
"Absolutely Amazon's bluffing," Forte told Cheddar Friday.
"What they're trying to do is basically get the support of the governor, support of the mayor. They have a loud local minority that's against Amazon coming to New York. When they announced that they were going with Northern Virginia, Tennessee, and New York City for their second HQ, it was an official press release. When they announced that they're reconsidering New York, it was a blog post."
Forte believes that Amazon put too much time and effort into selecting New York to reverse course now, and that the Big Apple offers too many strategic benefits in the tech giant's favor.
"When you think about New York, it checks a lot of boxes for Amazon as far as why they wanted to have a headquarters here."
"It's the largest population in the U.S., so it should have the largest population of talent for Amazon," he added. "And then there's local advantages unique to New York both in the media business and the advertising business, and those are two very important areas for Amazon as far as future growth of the company, so it's hard for me to believe they're just going to throw in the towel."
Forte has a "Buy" rating and $2,450 price target on Amazon ($AMZN) shares, and continues to be bullish, given the company's ability to generate profits from its highest growing businesses.
"The overlying story for Amazon is we call it Profit Incorporated. Their cloud computing, their advertising, their third-party retail, their fastest-growing businesses are their highest margin businesses, and that's why you're seeing much better than expected earnings per share from Amazon."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/d-a-davidson-calling-amazons-bluff-to-yank-nyc-hq2).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
